Homes England’s CEO and chair both standing down next year

Homes England has announced that its chair and chief executive will both stand down next year.

Peter Freeman and Peter Denton have both led the government’s housing and regeneration agency for four years.

Denton leaves the chief executive role in the New Year, while Freeman will hand over to a successor when the recruitment of a new chair is completed later next year.

An interim chief executive is set to be announced soon, in advance of a formal process to appoint a permanent officeholder.

Under Denton’s leadership, the organisation has undertaken a pivot back towards a focus on regeneration.

“Our work together at the Agency as “the Peters” has reflected a period of intense activity and achievement for the Agency,” said Denton. 

“We successfully navigated the transition to being a fully-fledged and empowered housing and regeneration Agency delivering strongly, especially in affordable housing, and initiating many catalytic regeneration projects throughout the country.”

Economic headwinds have seen the flagship affordable homes programme, which is overseen in most of the country by Homes England, repeatedly cut down from its original target of 180,000 homes to just 110,000.

Despite, this public body review earlier this year endorsed Homes England’s role as the key delivery agency for housing and regeneration, while urging the government to give it backing to “be even bolder” by playing the role of master developer on more large regeneration and placemaking schemes.  

Freeman said he looked forward to leading the agency while a successor was appointed, after which he said he would “focus my attentions on my role as chair of the Cambridge Growth Company”, a position he was appointed to by former housing secretary Michael Gove.

The changes in Homes England’s leadership come after a change of government in July, which saw a major overhaul in national housing strategy, with a greater focus on building new towns and on parts of the greenbelt.

>> Read more: ‘Good, but not perfect’ – What next for Homes England?

Denton said the new government’s ambition to build 1.5m homes over the course of this parliament would “require a leadership team with a time horizon extending beyond the period I had originally set for myself”.

Matthew Pennycook, housing and planning minister, thanked the pair for their leadership and wished them the best.

“Their efforts have been integral to reshaping Homes England into an effective national housing and regeneration agency that is increasingly focused on exemplary place-based regeneration and placemaking as well as new housing supply,” he said.